Organizations frequently purchase advertising space in media broadcasts (e.g., television and/or radio broadcasts) from broadcasters (e.g., the television or radio companies broadcasting the media stream). The terms governing the broadcast of a particular advertisement are generally negotiated between the advertiser and the broadcaster prior to the broadcast. Such terms, referred to herein as predefined airing specifications, define the expectations of the advertiser and broadcaster regarding parameters such as: when the advertisement will air, how long the advertisement will air for, what channel/station the advertisement will air on, how frequently the advertisement will air, etc. Because broadcasters typically have the final say regarding when and how particular advertisements are aired, advertisers have employed a variety of conventional techniques to ensure that their advertisements air in accordance with the predefined airing specifications.
One conventional advertisement auditing technique involves hiring personnel to watch a television broadcast or listen to a radio broadcast (or watch/listen to recordings thereof) and measure the parameters that their employer negotiated with the broadcaster. That is, in one conventional technique, advertisers hire people to watch/listen to a broadcast and take measurements regarding, for example, what time the advertisement(s) actually aired, the actual duration of the advertisement(s), what channel/station the advertisement(s) actually aired on, etc. The measured parameters are then compared with the negotiated parameters set forth in the predefined airing specifications to determine whether the broadcaster aired the advertisement(s) in accordance with the expectations of the advertiser. This technique produces a number of undesirable consequences, however. For example, this technique requires the advertiser to pay the wages of the monitoring personnel, introduces human error into the auditing procedure, and can be excessively time-consuming (e.g., when monitoring personnel need to re-watch an advertisement in order to retake a measurement).
Another existing technique seeks to allow advertisers to verify whether their advertisements aired in-line with predefined airing specifications by encoding markers in ancillary channels relative to the programming content itself. For example, this technique involves encoding markers in the vertical blanking interval (VBI) or the overscan region of a television signal carrying the advertisement. The encoded signal is then broadcast to individual viewers' home entertainment systems, where the home entertainment systems detect whether the encoded signal contains a marker in the VBI or overscan region. If so, the home entertainment system may generate viewing behavior information. This viewing behavior information may be sent to a clearinghouse for additional processing to determine, for example, whether an advertisement aired in accordance with an advertiser's expectations.
While this technique reduces the potential for human error, it nonetheless suffers from a number of drawbacks. For example, this technique unnecessarily monopolizes the ancillary channels with advertisement marker data. As such, these channels are no longer available for the transmission of other pertinent data that is typically transmitted in the VBI or overscan region. For example, closed captioning data, test signals, time codes, teletext, CGMS-A copy-protection indicators, and data encoded by the XDS protocol (e.g., the content ratings for V-chip use) are regularly transmitted in the VBI. Using this technique, however, some or all of these pertinent types of data must be excluded from the VBI or overscan region to allow for the inclusion of the advertisement marker. Another drawback associated with this technique is that it places too much reliance on the broadcaster to accurately encode the markers into the ancillary channel stream. That is, the broadcaster controls what data, if any, is inserted into the VBI or overscan region. Because the markers are designed to audit the broadcaster, it is undesirable to give the broadcaster any significant control over the content or placement of the markers.
Other existing techniques seek to provide advertisement broadcast auditing by, for example, generating a “signature” of a particular advertisement based on audio and/or visual attributes that are unique to that advertisement, and then monitoring a broadcast stream to identify instances of the signature. For example, one such technique involves analyzing an advertisement to generate an “audio signature” (e.g., an audio frequency profile) of the advertisement. A broadcast stream is then monitored to detect the occurrence of the advertisement by comparing the audio signature of the target advertisement against the audio frequency profile of the broadcast stream. When the frequency profile of the broadcast stream matches the audio signature of the advertisement, an occurrence of the advertisement is detected. A related technique involves generating a visual signature of an advertisement based on pixel values in a particular area of one or more advertisement image frames. For example, this technique involves generating a visual signature for an advertisement based on RGB/YCbCr/Y′CbCr/etc. pixel values for a given number of pixels in one or more image frames of the advertisement. A broadcast stream may then be monitored to detect instances of the signature, thereby identifying occurrences of the advertisement. However, these signature-type techniques are extremely demanding upon computer resources due to the fact that they require analysis of the entire broadcast stream.
Yet another technique involves placing one or more triggers indicating the presence of an advertisement within the programming content itself (i.e., not in an ancillary channel such as the VBI). For example, a system employing this technique places a trigger at the beginning and/or end of an advertisement. A detection unit then detects the presence of the trigger(s) to verify that the advertisement was in fact aired. This technique suffers from a number of shortcoming as well. For example, when only a single trigger is placed in the stream (e.g., at the beginning of the stream), the detection unit is unable to ascertain whether the entire advertisement was displayed or whether the advertisement was truncated following the trigger. Furthermore, while this technique allows for cursory analysis of an advertisement (e.g., whether an advertisement aired or not), it provides little, if any, detail regarding how the advertisement was aired. That is, this technique allows for broad generalizations regarding the advertisement (e.g., whether it aired at all), but it fails to provide specific information concerning the advertisement such as when particular segments of a single advertisement aired, whether all of the expected frames of the advertisement were successfully broadcast, etc.
It is therefore desirable to provide improved techniques for marking an advertisement for insertion into a broadcast stream, analyzing the broadcast stream containing the marked advertisement in order to glean information about the advertisement that actually aired, and comparing details about the advertisement that actually aired against predefined airing specifications.